Hernando market offers gourmet groceries and a personal touch

Hernando market feeding foodies

Red Square Meat and Fish Market recently opened with a round of applause for owner Chris Lee (right). Lee and wife Natalia also own and operate Memphis Street Cafe, both shops are located in Hernando.

November 19, 2012 - Eric Boling checks out a few higher-end food items at Red Square Meat and Fish Market. Chris and Natalia Lee, who also own Memphis Street Cafe, recently opened the market, both shops are located in Hernando. (Stan Carroll/The Commercial Appeal)

Chris Lee slices a fresh slab of Norwegian salmon at his recently opened Red Square Meat and Fish Market. The market's fish are mainly wild caught, aside from farm-raised catfish.

Natalia Lee (left) looks on as husband, Chris, cuts fresh ribeye steaks for their recently opened Red Square Meat and Fish Market in Hernando. The Lees also own and operate Memphis Street Cafe in Hernando. The owners say they've found a niche for a high-end, gourmet grocery store.

The seafood is fresh, not frozen then thawed. The beef is all Angus, all the time. The sausage and ground beef are made on the premises.

Hernando foodies never had it so good.

After building a following with their Memphis Street Cafe, chef Chris Lee and his wife, Natalia, are aiming to feed the DeSoto County seat's appetite for gourmet groceries.

The couple recently opened Red Square Meat and Fish Market in a strip shopping center at 427 East Commerce.

The native Memphian and his wife, a Russian immigrant, see a retail niche in supplying the kinds of higher-end food items that have drawn customers to their restaurant since 2008.

Banker Alan Sims, DeSoto County president at Southern Bancorp, checked out the store's selection and said he'd be back to shop once he draws a bit of inspiration from the Food Network.

"I think the young couples are going to enjoy being able to cook something totally different from what's in a restaurant. They'll be able to look up recipes on their iPads and then run down here to see what they can do."

Sims was practically salivating over thick-cut pork chops and New York strips. "I love grilling. It's a man thing."

Hernando Mayor Chip Johnson said the store dovetailed nicely with the city's efforts to encourage healthier lifestyles and more unique local retail. "There's nowhere else you can get fresh, sushi-grade tuna," he noted.

Chris Lee's culinary roots run deep in Memphis.

His paternal grandmother and her brother ran Burkle's Bakery and Restaurant, a dining landmark in Overton Square, for 40 years. "It's in my blood."

Lee, 41, took food technology classes at Ridgeway High School and later studied at Johnson & Wales University in Charleston and Le Cordon Bleu in London.

His resume includes stints at notable area restaurants Cafe Society, McEwen's on Monroe, Cafe Samovar and the Inn at Bonne Terre. He had his own short-lived restaurant, Christopher's, on Brookhaven Circle.

The couple met when he was executive chef at Cafe Samovar and she was working at The Peabody. They moved to Hernando when he took a job as executive chef at Fitzgerald's Casino in Tunica. They have two children, Alex, 2, and Leza, 7.

Working at the cafe, they identified an opportunity for a retail store. "Having a restaurant here, if you run out of something, it's hard to get it," he said. "A lot of people drive to Memphis to go to Fresh Market or Whole Foods. They're spending an hour or two driving to get fresh tuna and items like that."

"I knew there were enough people here that could support something like this."

"We want to have the hometown, small-town meat market feel."

The inventory reflects his tastes and preferences. "I just know what I've used in the past, what I like, and that's what I'm selling."

The beef is Certified Angus Beef, and the ground chuck is made fresh daily in the backroom using trimmings from New York strip and rib-eye steaks. The sausage is made by Lee's "sausage guy," FedEx Express aircraft mechanic Jim Smith, who parlayed a sausage-making hobby into a side job with Lee.

"I thought it would be a nice touch to have in-house-made sausage," Lee said.

The seafood from Off the Dock Seafood is wild caught, except for Indianola, Miss., pond-raised catfish.

In the freezer case are frog legs, marinated quail, Florida alligator tails, conch, crawfish tailmeat, and soft-shell, King and Canadian snow crab. There also are take-and-bake trays of lasagna, cabbage rolls and other prepared foods.

The grocery shelves are a work in progress: gourmet relishes and chow chow and imported items like Italian olive and sunflower oils and pastas.

Customers can buy sandwich meats, from rag bologna to liver cheese, and Block & Barrel cheeses by the pound. The Lees have plans to beef up the kitchen a bit and serve deli sandwiches, panini, salads and soups.

With Lee's restaurant experience and passion for food, the market offers more than the novelty of keta salmon roe and bowfin caviar, dry aged pork and oysters in the shell.

Customers get access to their own personal fine dining consultant, from whom people like banker Alan Sims can learn about ingredients and glean creative ideas to try out at home.

"People want to know what they're eating," Lee said. "They want to know where their steak is coming from. They want to know what's in the ground beef and they want to know the fat content."

"It's something you have to have a passion for. If you don't have the passion, don't do it."